This thesis approaches Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) as a biopolitical problem, that is as a shifting scientific object which needs to be studied, classified and regulated. Assemblages of authorities, knowledges, and techniques make CFS subjects and shape their everyday conduct in an attempt to increase their supposed autonomy, wellbeing and health. CFS identities are, however, made not only through government, scientific and medical interventions but also by the patients themselves, a biosocial community that collaborates with scientists, educates itself about the intricacies of biomedicine, and contests psychiatric truth claims. CFS is a socio-medical disorder, an illness trapped between medicine, psychology and society, an illness that is open to debate, and therefore difficult to manage and standardise. CFS is, thus, more than a fixed and defined medical category; it is a performative and multiple category, it is a heterogeneous world. This thesis studies that performative complexity by assembling different pieces of empirical data that constitute its heterogeneity: medical and psychiatric journals and monographs, self-help books, CFS organisations’ magazines, newsletters and websites, illness narratives and social studies of CFS, CFS blogs, and qualitative interviews with diagnosed CFS patients and CFS activists. The thesis delineates different interventions by medicine, science, the state and the patients themselves and concludes that CFS remains elusive, only partially standardised, in an on-going battle between all the different actors that want to define it for their own situated interests.

One of the most debated topics within public universities in Brazil is the development of alternative resources generated from entrepreneurial activities in order to supplement the lack of government funding for higher education. This study analyzes this issue, addresses questions about the creation of private institutions that provide fiscal support to federal universities, and discusses the relationship between federal universities and these private organizations. In particular, the research for this project is based on a case study of the Federal University of Ceara (UFC) and the eight private foundations that function within its structure and are sources of additional revenue for the institution. This study draws on resource dependency theory, academic capitalism theory, and globalization theory as its theoretical framework. Resource dependency theory is used to clarify why federal universities in Brazil have turned to private institutions within their structures in order to generate external revenue. Academic capitalism theory provides an understanding as to why universities are shifting their focus and functions towards a new market orientation. Globalization theory is used to explain how emerging international markets and concepts are affecting the new environment in public institutions in Brazil. The present research is based on UFC's experience with the eight private organizations which exist to provide support to their respective departments and to the university as a whole. The data collected is based on institutional documents such as statutes, contracts, and financial statements. Interviews were the other source of data gathering. The results indicate that private institutions (foundations and faculty associations) contribute significantly to the activities of their federal universities by generating additional, external revenue. At the same time, this national phenomenon is the subject of a heated debate centering on the question of whether public higher education in Brazil is essentially becoming privatized. The research also confirms that foundations are contributing to a shift in public higher education toward the new market orientation.

This study adopts a comparative institutional approach to address the question of why corporate social performance (CSP) tends to vary cross-nationally. Using a sample of 1551 firms from 20 different countries, I test the relationships between key institutional variables suggested in the varieties of capitalism literature (see Hall & Soskice, 2001) and corporate social performance. Specifically, I test the relationships between coordination in corporate governance and labour relations and CSP. To provide a comprehensive measure of CSP, I separately measure different dimensions of CSP (social and environmental) and categories of CSP(processes and outcomes). The results indicated that the market economy firms are embedded within produces differences in how they perform on social and environmental dimensions. In particular, national level coordination in corporate governance was found to produce differences in both the processes firms adopt to address social and environmental issues and the outcomes and impacts of firm actions on social and environmental dimensions. These institutional factors were found to be stronger predictors of CSP than both cultural differences and differences in industry composition. The results of this study lend support to the argument that CSP is driven by institutions at the national-level. I discuss the implications of these findings and chart out a course for futureresearch in the area.

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This study adopts a comparative institutional approach to address the question of why corporate social performance (CSP) tends to vary cross-nationally. Using a sample of 1551 firms from 20 different countries, I test the relationships between key institutional variables suggested in the varieties of capitalism literature (see Hall & Soskice, 2001) and corporate social performance. Specifically, I test the relationships between coordination in corporate governance and labour relations and CSP. To provide a comprehensive measure of CSP, I separately measure different dimensions of CSP (social and environmental) and categories of CSP(processes and outcomes). The results indicated that the market economy firms are embedded within produces differences in how they perform on social and environmental dimensions. In particular, national level coordination in corporate governance was found to produce differences in both the processes firms adopt to address social and environmental issues and the outcomes and impacts of firm actions on social and environmental dimensions. These institutional factors were found to be stronger predictors of CSP than both cultural differences and differences in industry composition. The results of this study lend support to the argument that CSP is driven by institutions at the national-level. I discuss the implications of these findings and chart out a course for futureresearch in the area.

In the Tokyo neighborhood of Shinjuku Ni-Chome, the number of women's gay bars has more than tripled over the past five years. Focusing on a neighborhood dance party called Girlfriend, this thesis explores the manner in which patrons and organizers of Girlfriend approach and negotiate with contemporary dance events. Taking place once a month, Girlfriend draws hundreds of young Japanese women who identify as queer, lesbian, bisexual and heterosexual, offering a variety of activities based on themes that challenge conventional norms about sexuality and gender. I conducted original qualitative research over the summer of 2011, including a series of open-ended interviews with patrons and organizers of Girlfriend. The information gathered from the interviews is analyzed along five key themes: observation of the tachi/neko binary (a dyadic system of masculine and feminine gender performativity), fantasy, safety and escape, the Other and contingency. This study demonstrates that the values and perceptions of women involved in these events are complex, and deeply ambiguous. This thesis argues that the event, and others like it, can serve as both a refuge for attendees, and a vehicle to reinforce homogenizing images of the mainstream, within a context of global capitalism. This research will contribute to a more advanced understanding of marginalized individuals in contemporary Japanese society. / Graduate / 0733 / 0332 / 0326 / foxnatasha@yahoo.com

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Overall, this thesis purports to make two significant contributions to knowledge. The first is a foundational critique of political economy in the context of an emergent global knowledge economy. The second is a method for analysing evaluations in language. The relationships that give coherence to those two contributions are as follows. The widely-heralded emergence of a knowledge economy indicates that more intimate aspects of human activity have become exposed to commodification on a massive scale, specifically, activities associated with thought and language. Correspondingly, more abstract forms of value have developed as the products of thought and language have become dominant commodity forms. Historical investigation shows that value has moved from an objective category in political economy, pertaining to such substances as precious metals and land, to become situated today predominantly in “expert” expressions of language, or more precisely, their institutional contexts of production. These are now propagated and circulated on a global scale. Legal, political, and technological developments are key in the development of new, more abstract forms of labour and value, although the relationships connecting these are neither simple nor direct. They are, however, inseparably related in the trajectories that this thesis describes. Consequently they are dealt with inseparably throughout.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Changing the behaviour of firms to take environmental concerns into account is seen as unlikely without effective regulations. However, corporations are increasingly keen to represent themselves as ‘green’, including those in the world’s largest manufacturing sector: the car industry. Given rising concern for the environment and environmental sustainability since the 1990s this thesis asks: what motivates car firms to actually make environmental commitments? Answering this question has implications for whether these commitments are ‘real’ and if so whether they are occurring in response to material factors (e.g. state regulations and consumer demand) versus normative factors (e.g. social attitudes and internal company strategies). In order to answer it, the thesis applies the insights of the institutional varieties of capitalism approach to the German, United States and Japanese car industries, and specific firms within them, in respect of the environmental issue of climate change from 1990 to 2004. Empirical national data is analysed, as well the environmental reporting of individual firms and interviews with key personnel. The main findings are that what leads the car industry to see environmental issues as central to their business interests hinges on the impact of differing national institutional factors. Specifically, it is a matter of whether firms have a liberal market economy (LME) as their home base, in the case of US firms, or a coordinated market economy (CME) as their home base, in the case of German and Japanese firms. US car firms react more to the material imperatives of consumer demand and state regulations. German and Japanese firms are more mindful of normative factors for their initiatives, such as social attitudes (especially for German firms) and internal company strategies (especially for Japanese firms). They have more of a partnership approach with government. Therefore, car firms have very distinct ‘lenses’ through which they see the environmental performance of the cars they produce. As such, the thesis concludes that the variety of capitalism of nations has implications not just for the type of products that economic actors such as car firms produce, and the competitive advantages they develop, but also the way they address related issues arising as a result of their activities, including environmental issues.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-206). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.